How Minimum Wage and Rent Control Laws Fail the ‘Bronowski Test’

Public policies often mistakenly treat people that are unlike in crucial ways as if they are alike.
By Gary M. Galles, Professor, Pepperdine University
In The Common Sense of Science, the Polish-British mathematician Jacob Bronowski wrote that, “at the basis of human thought lies the judgment of what is like and what is unlike.” Unfortunately, public policies often mistakenly treat people that are unlike in crucial ways as if they are alike, or those who are alike in crucial ways as if they were unlike.
Housing policy illustrates this point well. In discussions of rent control, attention focuses on how it will treat tenants, but fails to make the critical distinction between present tenants and future tenants, who will be very differently affected. It would provide a massive windfall for current tenants at the expense of landlords, forcing or keeping rents far below market value, with tenancy protections guaranteeing the windfall into the future.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti called it “like winning the lottery.” But it would harm the far larger group of people who seek rental housing after rent control is imposed. The slowed growth or shrinkage in the quantity and quality of the housing stock over time that results will increasingly lead to “no vacancy” signs rather than available or affordable units.